What happened to All the people who died BEFORE Christ came?

Question

If the only way to get to heavin is to beleve in Jesus, then did God damn all the millions off people that died before jesus ever existed, to hell? How is that just?

This question is mostly for those people that beleave in Jesus Christ as the Savior. I dont really care for those answers that simply say that God dose not exist.

Answer 1

He descended into hell and brought all the souls into heaven with him. In some churches you can see Jesus freeing Adam and Eve from their coffins in hell, and Jesus is crushing the serpent, the devil, and in the background you can see other souls coming to Jesus and rising as well. When Jesus was missing from His tomb, you know the whole "who fell asleep and didn't notice this huge boulder was moved" fiasco, he descended into hell to save all souls. Hence, the whole message that Jesus dies for our sins and so that ALL may enter heaven.

Answer 2

Christ's sacrifice is applied to people throughout all time, both before and after the time He lived on Earth. The gospel was on the Earth before the time of Christ, and people then had the opportunity to believe just as they do today. It is obvious from the Bible that many people that were mentioned in the Old Testament would be saved.
Those that didn't get a chance to hear the gospel in life were taught in the next life while Christ's body lay in the tomb.
1 Peter 3:18-20
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Answer 3

When a person died who believed in and trusted God before Jesus came, that person went to an area of hell called ABRAHAM'S BOSUM or PARADISE. There they waited for the coming of Christ. When Christ Jesus died, he went to hell and released those waiting in Paradise. These people actually walked the earth and then went to be with God. Today, people who die who have trusted Christ as Savior go straight to God's presence.
The other side of hell was called The Place of Torment, where souls are waiting the final judgment.
Paradise is empty now, but the Place of Torment is still receiving souls.
Also, those that have never heard of the offer of salvation are judged on how they lived according to what they believed. This can be found in Romans, chapter 2, verses 12 through 16.

Answer 4

People Before Christ

Answer 5

It is called Abraham's bosom. If you read the story of the Rich man and lazerus or if you read 1 peter 3 and several other places in scripture it talks about how Christ went to those spirits who were in prison. Meaning once somone died before christ defeated the grave... their spirit waited for him in "prison" or Abraham's bosom. They are then released to heaven if they are shown to be righteous by their faith. Now don't misunderstand prison to mean they are being punished... it is just that they are held there waiting for the time when the "gates" of heaven would be opened. One may say thousands of years waiting would be punishment. However how do we know how time effects the spirit? Ok thats digging a little far isn't it. I hope this helped :D

Answer 6

There may be millions in hell before Jesus was born by a virgin. But, before Jesus,God answered people directly, in dreams and visions, through the prophets,and so on. God gives an example of Noah to us. To be righteous in an ungodly world is what He is looking for- He will deliver the just. Also, it may be that Christ desended into Hell and preached to those you are talking about. You can find this in I Peter 3: vs 18,19 &20. I guarantee you God is just, holy, and true. What He says -He will do. Look at the 3 Hebrew boys in Daniel, too. Jesus showed up!

Answer 7

The Bible calls it sleep when a person dies. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Answer 8

First off,pay attention to the spell-check; it's there for a reason. In response to your question,the answer is: obviously not. Since three ministers of the Zoroastrian faith were the first to recognize His divinity - the magi - we may reasonably extrapolate that prior to God introducing Christ as our intercessor virtue and devotion to God were still rewarded. I will mention in passing that since the Zoroastrians embraced His divinity even before birth while the jews rejected it and still do,He was probably not jewish. The Persian religion was dominant in the region and given His attitude toward rabbis,their temples,what to speak of their sinister teachings - he argued forgiveness as opposed to the old eye for an eye - also suggests He was not a jew. There are interpolations,like the story of Christ among the doctors,but that is now known to have been lifted from a spurious text called "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas" and was probably stuck in there to make the case that He was a jew or the jewish messiah,and all that.

Answer 9

The Bible explains that God viewed as righteous men of faith such as Abraham that lived before Jesus came, and forgave their sins on the basis of what he would yet do in the future.

Romans Chapter 3 explains:

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and it is as a free gift that they are being declared righteous by his undeserved kindness through the release by the ransom [paid] by Christ Jesus. 25 God set him forth as an offering for propitiation through faith in his blood. This was in order to exhibit his own righteousness, because he was forgiving the sins that occurred in the past while God was exercising forbearance; 26 so as to exhibit his own righteousness in this present season, that he might be righteous even when declaring righteous the man that has faith in Jesus."

So God has shown his righteousness, in that all can benefit from Jesus ransom sacrafice not just those that lived afterward.

The Bible does not teach of a firery hell of torment. The dead are not tormented they simply do not exist, they have no conciousness; that is the future of all wicked people.

Some translate the Greek word Hades as "Hell", but the Bible says that Jesus went to Hades (Acts 2:27), it means the common grave of mankind or figurative location of all those dead. It is where the ones you are concerned about are, but they are not concious there it is as though they are sleeping and waiting to be awakened. (John 11:11-14)

God purposes for just a limited number from earth to go to heaven, they are to be "kings and priests" with Jesus in his kingdom that will rule over and completely heal the earth and people on it, all other good people will live on earth under this heavenly government and make the whole earth like the garden of Eden that God planted and settled Adam into. (Dan 2:44; Mt 5:5; 6:10) Those millions that died before Chirst came will be resurrected to life again with the prospect of living forever on earth. (John 5:28,29)

Answer 10

God used people, called prophets, to talk to the people on this world before Christ. When the prophets and everyone who followed God died, yes they did go to Hell because they weren't saved yet, but when Jesus died they all raised from the graves and went to Heaven with the Lord.

Answer 11

Since the fall of man, the basis of salvation has always been the death of Christ. No one, either prior to the cross or since the cross, would ever be saved without that one pivotal event in the history of the world. Christ's death paid the penalty for past sins of Old Testament saints and future sins of New Testament saints.
The requirement for salvation has always been faith. The object of one's faith for salvation has always been God. The psalmist wrote, "Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him" (Psalm 2:12). Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham believed God and that was enough for God to account it to him for righteousness (see also Romans 4:3-8). The Old Testament sacrificial system did not take away sin, as Hebrews 9:1-10:4 clearly teaches. It did, however, point to the day when the Son of God would shed His blood for the sinful human race.
What has changed through the ages is the content of a believer's faith. God's requirement of what must be believed is based on the amount of revelation He has given mankind up to that time. This is called progressive revelation. Adam believed the promise God gave in Genesis 3:15 that the Seed of the woman would conquer Satan. Adam believed Him, demonstrated by the name he gave Eve (v.20) and the Lord indicated His acceptance immediately by covering them with coats of skin (v.21). At that point that is all Adam knew, but he believed it.
Abraham believed God according to the promises and new revelation God gave him in Genesis 12 and 15. Prior to Moses, no Scripture was written, but mankind was responsible for what God had revealed. Throughout the Old Testament, believers came to salvation because they believed that God would someday take care of their sin problem. Today, we look back, believing that He has already taken care of our sins on Calvary (John 3:16; Hebrews 9:28).